Following the EU Summit concluded last Friday, this week’s plenary session of the EU Parliament will focus on Brexit, the EU budget, and regulations concerning tax havens.
Responses to current crises, including impacts from the collapse of UK travel agent Thomas Cooke and the recent terrorist attack outside a synagogue in Halle, Germany, are also up for discussion.
Brexit currently dominates the agenda, with the Sunday Times reporting that the EU will offer the UK a “mobile” Brexit date with a final deadline of February 2020 if Johnson’s withdrawal agreement is not ratified this week. The deadline could be pushed further into June, a move favored by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders, if Johnson has “serious problems” with the resolution.
Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne, who currently holds the Presidency of the EU Council, will work with President of the European Council Donald Tusk to conduct consultations with EU governments over the next few days, after which time the European Parliament will seek to adopt an agreement on exit conditions for the UK.
No decision will be made until EU countries assess the chances of the UK Parliament adopting the current withdrawal agreement. The EP plenary is currently scheduled to end late Thursday this week, with debates on the EU budget, strategic priorities, climate change, and tax havens all scheduled for tomorrow.
Using artificial intelligence, Dr. Justyna Sarzyńska-Wawer of the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences is developing a free program that promises to be more effective than humans at detecting lies.
“People have roughly 53-54 percent effectiveness in recognizing the lies of people they don’t know,” reports Sarzyńska-Wawer, which is only slightly better than completely random chance.
Studies in the UK and the US have already demonstrated certain linguistic characteristics of lies and liars, including the use of less complex constructions, a prevalence of negative connotations, and the decreased usage of personal pronouns. Scientists like Sarzyńska-Wawer now want to check if the same phenomena observed in English also occur when subjects are lying in Polish.
The project’s neural network is being trained to spot lies by “feeding” it texts generated by some 400 participants and comparing the results with human assessors. Despite only three-fourths of respondents being examined, preliminary results show that the program is already more effective than its human counterparts.
A new city vantage point in Wrzeszcz was unveiled yesterday as part of the ongoing “Look at Gdańsk” project started in 2016 by Professor Witold Paweł Burkiewicz.
Named after Gdańsk native Joanna Schopenhauer, writer and mother of the famous German philosopher Artur Schopenhauer, the observation point is located atop a hill at Krzysztof Arciszewski Street and affords views of the Srebrzysko cemetery, the hills behind Oliwa, and the Bay of Gdańsk.
The opening ceremony featured a reading from Schopenhauer’s diary, Gdańsk Memoirs of Youth, in which she describes numerous sights around Gdańsk including the “fields and forests, Hel peninsula with its lighthouse, the open sea, Reda with ships sailing from the blue distance…and the Vistula escaping to the Baltic Sea with the Wisłoujście fortress on its shore…”
Future plans for the site include construction of a viewing platform, improved access via a stairway, and additional benches.
History repeated itself yesterday in Gdynia as the 43rd Tricity Derby once again ended in a draw despite Lechia leading in added time.
The White and Green took an early lead in the second half thanks to top-scorer and team captain Flavio Paixao, followed mere minutes later with a goal by striker Artur Sobiech. Arka fired back in the 75th minute with a header by midfielder Michał Nalepa, with flying Dutchman Marko Vejinović sailing in to destroy Lechia’s slim lead with his dramatic equalizer 10 minutes into stoppage time.
Arka also debuted a new coach, Serbian Aleksandar Rogić, who claimed he was “happy with the atmosphere that accompanied this match” as it was a “great spectacle for the fans.” As a result of the draw, both teams dropped two points in Ekstraklasa league rankings, with the Yellow and Blue remaining in the bottom half of the league table and the White and Green lagging four points behind leaders Pogon Szczecin.
Unlike the Derby, Lechia fans are welcome to attend next Saturday’s match against Górnik Zabrze at PGE Arena.
Weather
Today will be mostly cloudy but warmer than yesterday with an expected high around 17 degrees celsius or roughly 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Humidity will remain high, with a stronger breeze coming in from the northwest in the afternoon. There will be a slight chance of rain overnight with similar weather and warmer temps expected for tomorrow.
